Sluice Box Adventures

The Foundation Was Established

Psalm 12:6-7 “The words of
the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a
furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep
them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation
for ever.”

The Novatian, the distinguished founder of the community that bore his name,
is known among Greek ecclesiastical writers as Novatus. He was not Novatus of
Carthage, a presbyter of that city, who sorely vexed the imperious soul of
Cyprian, and who came to Rome and united with Novatian in efforts to maintain
gospel purity in the churches.

Psalm 12 ... is the promise to us!

Purified seven times ... God's word is kept in spite of men!

Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from
among the children of men.[Verse 1]

They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with
flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.
[Verse 2]

The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue
that speaketh proud things: [Verse 3]

Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are
our own: who is lord over us? [Verse 4]

For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the
needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from
him that puffeth at him. [Verse 5]

The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a
furnace of earth, purified seven times. [Verse 6]

Cathcart’s Essays

Baptist History

William Cathcart's Essay

Novatianists

Donatists

Albigenses

Henricians

Petrobrussians

The Anabaptists

Novatianists

The Novatians by William Cathcart

The Novatian, the distinguished founder of
the community that bore his name, is known
among Greek ecclesiastical writers as
Novatus. He was not Novatus of Carthage, a
presbyter of that city, who sorely vexed the
imperious soul of Cyprian, and who came to
Rome and united with Novatian in efforts to
maintain gospel purity in the churches.

Novatian, before he professed conversion,
was a philosopher of remarkable ability,
culture, eloquence, and powers of
persuasion; he was a natural leader of men.
When attacked by a danger­ous disease, from
which death was apprehended, in accordance
with the opinion then commonly held by
Christians, it was judged that he should be
baptized to make heaven certain, and, as his
weakness rendered immersion impossible
without risking his immediate death, he was
subjected, on his couch, to a profuse
application of water. We are not informed
that Novatian desired this cere­mony
himself, without any persuasions from his
alarmed friends. The writer was once sent
for to see a dying lady, and, after praying
with her, was earnestly pressed by a
follower of Irish Romanism, the perverted
faith of St. Patrick the Baptist, to
regenerate her ;“ he declined to exercise
the powers of the Spirit of God and the
functions of a Pedo­baptist minister; had he
yielded, the lady was in a condition in
which she could not beheld responsi­ble for
the act. And it is not improbable that this
was the situation of Novatian. He was spared
by the providence of God for a mighty work
in the churches, and when restored to health
he became very active in advancing the
interests of Christian­ity in Rome.

At that period the church, in the capital of
the world, as Eusebius records, had 46
presbyters, 14 deacons and subdeacons, 50
minor ecclesiastical officials, and widows
and sick and indigent per­sons, numbering in
all 1500, whose support had to be provided
for. And partly to assist in bearing this
burden, but chiefly through a lack of faith
and of complete consecration to God, the
door of the church was kept very wide for
the admission of unconverted professors, and
when these persons betrayed the Saviour by
sacrificing to idols in times of
persecution, their conduct was excused by
their lax brethren; and the excommunication,
necessarily pronounced upon them immediately
after their apostasy, was speedily removed.

Cornelius, a Roman presbyter, with an eager
eye to the Support to be gathered from
restored apos­tates, strongly advocated
their forgiveness by the church. Novatian
very strenuously resisted it; and when a
successor to Bishop Fabianus was to be
elected, Cornelius was properly made a
prede­cessor of a long line of coming popes,
who loved gold more than anything in the
Christian religion.

Novatian was condemned by Cornelius and by
all his episcopal friends; and the bishop of
Rome sent letters everywhere, bringing the
most grievous charges against him, and
giving the names and po­sitions of the
bishops who united with him in his efforts
to crush the first great reformer.

Novatian had been made a presbyter by
Fabianus against the custom of the church,
for, as Corne­lius says, in Eusebius,* “ It
was not lawful that one baptized in his
sick-bed by aspersion, as he was, should be
promoted to any order of the clergy. If,
indeed, it be proper to say that one like
him did receive baptism.” But this only
shows his extra­ordinary talents and
influence.

After Cornelius became bishop Novatian was
elevated to the same office by three Italian
bishops, and at once founded the purer
community, for whose advancement he labored
with great success until martyrdomn removed
him from the presence of wicked church
members in full ecclesiastical standing.

Among the charges brought by Cornelius
against Novatian, a list of which can be
found in Eusebius, was an accusation of
cowardice for refusing to per­form the
duties of his ministerial office in a time
of persecution. Novatian set up a new
community in defiance of Cornelius and of
nearly all the Chris­tian bishops on earth;
and in this he showed un­usual courage.
Opposition to the treachery, charged upon
himself by Cornelius, was the chief
instrument which he used to establish his
pure church, and it is not in human nature
to believe that any man could found a new
community in Rome itself by denunciations of
a cowardly crime of which he himself had
given a conspicuous example. Besides, he
left the world as a martyr.

It was customary in the time of Ambrose,
when the minister distributed the Lord’s
Supper to the faithful, to say, “The body of
Christ,” and the re­cipient answered,
“Amen.”+ Cornelius, in the same calumnious
letter in Eusehius, states that Novatian,
when he gave a portion of the Eucharist to a
communicant, instead of permitting him to
say “Amen,” according to the usage no doubt
then in existence, seized his hand in both
of his hands, before he partook of the
symbolic bread, and made him “swear by the
body and blood of our Saviour, Je€ns Christ,
that he would never de­sert him, nor turn to
Cornelius.” This story carries its own
refutation; the idea that the founder of the
purest Christian community then in existence
should resort to such an infamous procedure
is sim­ply incredible. Cornelius, in the
same connection, makes slanderous statements
about the extraordi­nary ambition of
Novatian, which have come down to us through
the “Ecclesiastical History” of Eusebius;
and his vanity is frequently given as the
mo­tive that led to his assumption of the
bishop’s office, and to the reformation
inaugurated by Novatian.

The Novatians called themselves Kathari, or
Puritans. The corner-stone of the
denomination was purity of church
membership. Novatian charged Cornelius and
his followers with dishonor­ing the church
of God, and destroying its divine character
by admitting apostates into its member­ship.
He maintained that those who had sacri­ficed
to the idols to save their lives should
never be permitted to come to the Lord’s
table again. This theory became popular with
the saintly heroes and heroines, who
suffered terribly at the hands of Christ’s
persecuting enemies, but whose lives were
spared. And all true Christians felt a
strong lean­ing towards the holy religion
advocated and exhib­ited by Novatian and his
followers. Socrates,++ a candid and
intelligent Greek historian, says, “Novatus
(Novatian), a presbyter of the Romish
Church, separated from it because Cornelius,
the bishop, received into communion
believers who had sacri­ficed (to idols)
during the persecution which the emperor
Decius had raised against the church.

On being afterwards elevated to the
episcopacy by such prelates as entertained
similar sentiments, he wrote to all the
churches, insisting that they should not
admit to the sacred mysteries those who had
sacrificed (to idols), but exhorting them to
repent­ance, leave the pardon of their
offense to God, who has the power to forgive
all sin. . . . The exclusion of those who,
after baptism, had committed any deadly sin
from the mysteries appeared to some a cruel
and merciless course; but others thought it
just and necessary for the maintenance of
disci­pline, and the promotion of greater
devotedness of life. In the midst of the
agitation of this important question letters
arrived from Cornelius the bishop promising
indulgence to delinquents after baptism.

Those who had pleasure in sin, encouraged by
the license thus granted them, took occasion
from it to revel in every species of
criminality.” The Novatians permanently
excluded from their commu­nity all who were
guilty of deadly sins and second marriages,
as well as those who sacrificed to idols to
save their lives; and they regarded the
church universal as having lost the
character of a church of Christ by receiving
such persons into her mem­bership. As a
result of this conviction they bap­tized
again all who came from the old church to
them. Their baptism was immersion, the
“pour­ing around” of Novatian on his
sick-bed is the only transaction of that
kind in their history now known; and as
their leader suffered so much from the
unscriptural performance, his followers had
little encouragement to imitate such an
unfortunate example.

The general doctrines of the Novatians were
in perfect harmony with those received by
the church universal; they only differed
fromn it on questions of discipline, and
chiefly on the great subject of consecration
to God.

It is creditable to the piety of the
centuries during which the Novatians existed
that great numbers of Christians adopted
their sentiments and their fold; though
hated, wickedly calumni­ated, and fiercely
persecuted for a long time, they spread, and
they found adherents not only in rural
regions, but in great cities and in the
palaces of the emperor. Speaking of the law
of Constantine the Great by which heretics
were forbidden to meet “in their own houses
of prayer, in private houses, or in public
places, but were compelled to enter into
communion with the church universal,”
Sozomen says, “The Novatians alone, who had
ob­tained good leaders, and who entertained
the same opinions respecting the divinity as
the Catholic Church, formed a large sect
fromn the beginning, and were not decreased
in point of numbers by this law. The
emperor, I believe, related the rigor of the
enactment in their favor... . . . Acesius,
who was then the bishop of the Novatians in
Constantinople, was much esteemed by the
emperor on account of his virtuous life."*

Novatian himself was a man of fervent piety;
and his life after his conversion was above
re­proach, unless when accusations came from
a calumniator whose charges were incapable
of proof. He was the author of works on “The
Passover,” “Circumcision,” “The Sabbath,”
“High-Priests,” “The Trinity,” and on other
subjects. He had many distinguished men
among his disciples. His community spread
very widely, and enjoyed special prosperity
in Phrygia; but de­clined rapidly in the
fifth century. The Novatians, as a people,
were an honor to Christianity, and their
teachings and example exercised a powerful
restraint upon the growing corruptions of
the old church.

The Novatians commenced their denominational
life when the baptism of an unconscious babe
was unknown outside of Africa; and there it
had a lim­ited, if not a doubtful,
existence. Indeed, if a cel­ebrated letter
of Cyprian, about a council of bish­ops,
said to have been held in Carthage half a
dozen years after Novatian set up his banner
of church purity, be a forgery, and the
supposition is by no means an improbable
one, unconscious infant bap­tism has no
proof of its existence in the literature of
the world. The infant rite, according to the
let­ter of Cyprian just referred to, had
Cyprian for its patron, and as he had shown
the utmost hostil­ity to Novatian, he and
his followers would not be very eager to
adopt a ceremony of which his letter, if
genuine, shows that he was the special
friend. These considerations, together with
the holiness of life demanded by Novatian
churches, have led many persons to regard
them as Baptists. Of the truth of this
opinion in the early history of this people
there can be no doubt; and that the
ma­jority of their churches baptized only
instructed persons to the end of their
history is in the highest degree probable. -

source: Cathcart's Baptist Encyclopedia

Donatists

The Donatistsby William
Cathcart

In North Africa, during the fierce
persecution of Dioclesian, many Christians
courted a violent death. These persons,
without the accusation, would confess to the
possession of the Holy Scriptures, and on
their refusal to surrender them, they were
immediately imprisoned and frequently
executed. While they were in confinement
they were visited by throngs of disciples,
who bestowed upon them valuable gifts and
showed them the highest honor.

Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, disapproved
of all voluntary martyrdoms, and took steps
to hinder bloodshed. And if he had gone no
farther in this direction he would have
deserved the commendation of all good men.
But by zealous Christians in North Africa he
was regarded as unfriendly to compulsory
martyrdom, and to the manifestations of
tender regard shown to the victims of
tyranny. And by some he was supposed to be
capable of a gross deception to preserve his
own life, or to secure the safety of his
friends. When a church at Carthage was about
to be searched for copies of the Bible, he
had them concealed in a safe place, and the
writings of heretics substituted for them.
This removal was an act of Christian
faithfulness, but the works which he put in
the church in their stead were apparently
intended to deceive the heathen officers.
Mensurius seems to us to have been too
prudent a man for a Christian bishop in the
harsh times in which he lived. In his own
day his conduct created a most unfavorable
opinion of his religious courage and
faithfulness among multitudes of the
Saviour's servants in his country. Secundus,
primate of Numidia, wrote to Mensurius,
giving utterance to censures about his
conduct, and glorifying the men who perished
rather than surrender their Bibles.
Caecilian was the arch-deacon of the bishop
of Carthage, and was known to enjoy his
confidence and share his opinions.

Mensurius, returning from a visit to Rome,
became ill, and died in the year 311.
Caecilian was appointed his successor, and
immediately the whole opposition of the
enemies of his predecessor was directed to
him. In his own city a rich widow of great
influence, and her numerous friends,
assailed him; a synod seventy Numidian
bishops excommunicated him for receiving
ordination from a traitor (one who had
delivered up the Bible to be burned to save
his life); and another bishop was elected to
take charge of the church of Carthage. The
Donatist community was then launched upon
the sea of its stormy life.

Bishop Donatus, after whom the new
denomination was named, was a man of great
eloquence, as unbending as Martin Luther, as
fiery as the great Scotch Reformer, whose
principles were dearer to him than life, and
who was governed by unwearied energy. Under
his guidance the Donatists spread all over
the Roman dominions on the African coast,
and for a time threatened the supremacy of
the older Christian community. But
persecution laid its heavy hand upon their
personal liberty, their church property, and
their lives. Again and again this old and
crushing argument was applied to the
Donatists, and still they survived for
centuries. Their hardships secured the
sympathy of numerous hand of armed marauders
called Circumcelliones, men who suffered
severely from the authorities sustained by
the persecuting church, "free lance"
warriors who cared nothing for religion, but
had a wholesome hatred of tyrants. These men
fought desperately for the oppressed
Donatists. Julian the Apostate took their
side when he ascended the throne of the
Caesars, and showed much interest in their
welfare, as unbelievers in modern times have
frequently shown sympathy with persecuted
communities in Christian lands.

There were a few Donatist churches outside
of Africa, but the denomination was almost
confined at that continent. They suffered
less from the Vandals than their former
oppressors, but the power of these
conquerors was very injurious to them; and
the victorious Saracens destroyed the
remaining churches of this grand old
community.

The Donatists were determined to have only
godly members in their churches. In this
particular they were immeasurably superior
to the Church Universal (Catholic), even as
represented by the great Augustine of Hippo.
Their teachings of this question are in
perfect harmony with out own. They regarded
the Church Universal as having forfeited her
Christian character by her inconsistencies
and iniquities, and they refused to
recognize her ordinances and her ministry.
Hence they gave the triple immersion a
second time to those who had received it in
the great corrupt church. Their government
was not episcopal in the modern sense.
Mosheim is right in representing them as
having at one time 400 bishops. The Roman
population on the North African coast would
not have required twenty diocesan bishop to
care for this spiritual wants. Every town,
in all probability, had its bishop, and if
there were two or more congregations, these
formed but one church, whose services were
in charge of one minister and his
assistants. These church leaders were
largely under the control of the people to
whom they ministered. The Donatists held
boldly the doctrine that the church and the
state were entirely distinct bodies. Early
in their denominational life, Constantine
the Great, for the first time in earthly
history, had united the church to the Roman
government, and speedily the Donatists arose
to denounce the union as unhallowed, and as
forbidden by the highest authority in the
Christian Church. No Baptist in modern times
brands the accursed union between church and
state with more appropriate condemnations
than did his ancient Donatist brother. Their
faith on this question is well expressed in
their familiar says, "What has the emperor
to do with the church?" Soul liberty lived
in their day.

It is extremely probable that they did not
practice the baptism of unconscious babes,--
at least in the early part of their history.
It is often urged that Augustine, their
bitter enemy, would not fail to bring this
charge against them if they had rejected his
favorite rite. His works now extant do not
directly bring such an accusation against
them, and it is concluded that they followed
his own usage. This argument would have
great weight if it were proved that all the
Catholics of Africa baptized unconscious
babes. But there is no evidence of such
universal observance. Outside of Africa, in
the fourth century, the baptism if an
unconscious babe was a rare occurrence.
Though born in it of pious parents,
Augustine himself was not baptized till he
was thirty- three years of age. His words
are bristling with weapons to defend infant
baptism; they are the arsenal from which its
modern defenders have procured their most
effective arms, and if the custom had been
universally accepted, he would have seen no
cause to keep up such a warfare in its
defense. The frequency with which Augustine
treats of infant baptism is striking
evidence that its observance in his day and
country was often called in question, and
that had he directly pointed out this defect
in the observances of the Donatists he would
have been quickly reminded that he had
better remove the opposition to infant
baptism from his own people before he
assailed it among the Donatists. This fact
would account for the supposed silence of
Augustine on this question. The second canon
of the Council of Carthage, where the
principles of Augustine were supreme,
"Declares an anathema against such as deny
that children ought to be baptized as soon
as they are born." (Du. Pin. i. 635.
Dublin.) If this curse is against the
Donatist, it shows that they did not
practice the infant rite; if it is against
other Africans, it gives a good reason why
Augustine should be cautious in bringing
charges against the Donatists on this
account. Augustine wrote a work "On Baptism,
Against the Donatists," in which, speaking
of infant baptism, he says, "And if any one
seek divine authority in this matter,
although, what the whole church holds, not
as instituted by councils, but as a thing
always observed, is rightly held to have
been handed down by apostolical authority."
(Et si quisquam in hac re autoritatem
divinam quaeret. -- Patrol. Lat., vol. xlii.
p. 174, Migne Parisiis.) This book is
expressly written against the views of
baptism held by the Donatists; it was
designed to correct their errors on that
subject. And he clearly admits that some of
them doubted the divine authority of infant
baptism, and he proceeds to establish it by
an argument from circumcision. Augustine was
a powerful controversialist; to have charged
the Donatists directly with heresy for
rejecting infant baptism would have been an
accusation against many in his own church,
and he prudently assails his enemies on this
point, as if only some of them regarded
infant baptism as a mere human invention;
and he boastfully and ignorantly, or falsely
speaks of it as always observed by the whole
church, while one of his own African
councils pronounces a curse upon those who
"denied that children ought to be baptized
as soon as they are born."

source: Cathcart's Baptist Encyclopedia

Albigenses

The Albigenses by William Cathcart

The Albigenses received this name from the
town of Albi, in France. in and around which
many of them lived. The Albigenses were
called Cathari, Paterines, Publicans,
Paulicians, Good Men, Bogomiles, and they
were known by other names. They were not
Waldenses. They were Paulicians, either
directly from the East, or converted through
the instrumentality of those who came from
the earlier homes of that people.
The Paulicians were summoned into existence
by the Spirit of God about A.D. 660 Their
founder was named Constantine. The reading
of a New Testament, left him by a stranger,
brought him to the Saviour. lie soon
gathered a church, and hiis converts
speedily collected othor8. Armenia was the
scene of his labors. They were denounced as
Manicheans, thought they justly denied the
charge. They increased rapidly, and in
process of time persecution scattered them.
In the ninth century many of them were in
Thrace, Bulgaria and Bosnia; and, later
still, they became very numerous in these
new fields, especially in Bosnia.* Indeed,
such a host had they become that in 1238
Coloman, the brother of the king of Hungary
entered Bosnia to destroy the heretics.
Gregory IX. congratulated him upon his
success, but lived to learn that the
Bogomiles were still a multitude. A second
crusade led to further butchery, but the
blood of martyrs was still the seed of the
church, and they continued a powerful body
until the conquest of their country by the
Turks, in 1463. There was direct
communication between these Bogomiles and
the Albigenses in France. Matthew Paris++
tells us that the heretic Albigenses in the
provinces of Bulgaria, Crotia, and Dalmatia
elected Bartholomew as their pope, that
Albigenses came to him from all quarters for
information on doubtful matters, and that he
had a vicar who was born in Carcassone, and
who lived near Thoulouse.

At an early period the Paulicians entered
Italy and established powerful communities,
especially in Milan. They spread over
France. Germany, and other countries. In the
eleventh century they were to be found in
almost every quarter of Europe. St. Bernard,
in the twelfth century, says of them, "If
you interrogate them about their faith
nothing can be more Christian. If you
examine into their conversation nothing can
he more blameless, and what they say they
confirm by their deeds. As for what regards
life and manners, they attack no one, they
circumvent no one, they defraud no one."

Reinerius Saceho belonged to the Cathari
(not the Waldenses, he was never a member of
that community) for seventeen years. He was
afterwards a Romish inquisitor, and he
describes his old friends and the Waldenses,
in 1254, in these words:

"Heretics are distinguished by their manners
and their words, for they are sedate and
modest in their manners. They have no pride
in clothes, for they wear such as are
neither costly nor mean. They do not carry
on business in order to avoid falsehoods,
oaths, and frauds, but only live by labor as
workmen. Their teachers also are shoemakers
and weavers. They do not multiply riches,
but are content with what is necessary, and
they are chaste, especially the Leonists.
They are also temperate in meat and drink.
They do not go to taverns, dances, or other
vanities."

The Leonists were the followers of Peter
Waldo, of Lyons, the Waldenses, as
distinguished from his own old sect, the
Albigenses. Reinerius then proceeds to
charge these men who shun business to avoid
falsehoods with hypocrisy. No body of men
could receive a better character than St.
Bernard and the inquisitor give these
enemies of the Church of Rome, and no
community could be more wickedly abused by
the same men than these identical heretics.
For some centuries the Albigenses figured
universally in history as externally the
purest and best of men, and secretly as
guilty of horrible crimes, such as the
pagans charged upon the early Christians.

Reinerius mentions several causes for the
spread of heresy. His second is that all the
men and women, small and great, day and
night. do not cease to learn, and they are
continually engaged in teaching what they
have acquired themselves. His third cause
for the existence and spread of heresy is
the translation and circulation of the Old
and New Testaments into the vulgar tongue.
These they learned themselves and taught to
others. Reinerius** was acquainted with a
rustic layman who repeated the whole book of
Job, and with many who knew perfectly the
entire New Testament. He gives an account of
many schools of the heretics, the existence
of which he learned in the trials of the
Inquisition. Assuredly these friends of
light and of a Bible circulated everywhere
were worthy of the curses and tortures of
men like Reinerius and lordly bigots like
St. Bernard. In a council held at Thoulouse
in 1229 the Scriptures in the language of
the people were first prohibited. The
Albigenses surviving the horrid massacre of
the Pope's murderous crusaders were
forbidden to have the "books of the Old or
New Testament, unless a Psalter, a Breviary,
and a Rosary, and they forbade the
translation in the vulgar tongue." No doubt
many of the members of the council supposed
that the Breviary and Rosary were inspired
as well as the Psalter.

Reinerius gives a catalogue of the doctrines
of the Cathari, which corresponds with the
list of heresies charged against them for
two hundred years before he wrote by popes,
bishops, and ecclesiastical gatherings, the
substance of which has no claim upon our
credulity, though some of the forms of
expression may have been used by certain of
these venerable worthies.

Reinerius+++ says that the Cathari had 16
churches, the church of the Albanenses, or
of Sansano, of Contorezo, of Bagnolenses, or
of Bagnolo, of Vincenza, or of the
Marquisate, of Florence, of the Valley of
Spoleto, of France, of Thoulouse, of Cahors,
of Albi, of Sclavonia, of the Latins at
Constantinople, of the Greeks in the same
city, of Philadelphia, of Bulgaria, and of
Dugranicia. He says, "They all derive their
origin from the two last." That is, they are
all Paulicians, originally from Armenia. He
says that "the churches number 4000 Cathari,
of both sexes, in all the world, but
believers innumerable." By churches we are
to understand communities of the Perfect
devoted to ministerial and missionary labor.
The Believers in the time of Reinerius were
counted by millions.

Upon infant baptism the Albigenses had very
decided opinions. A council*** held in
Thoulouse in 1119, undoubtedly referring to
them, condemns and expels from the church of
God those who put on the appearance of
religion and condemned the sacrament of the
body and the blood of the Lord and the
baptism of children.

At a meeting of "archbishops, bishops, and
other pious men" at Thoulouse, in 1176, the
Albigenses were condemned on various
pretexts. Roger De Hoveden, a learned
Englishman, who commenced to write his
"Annals" in 1189++++, gives a lengthy
account of this meeting. He says that
Gilbert, bishop of Lyons, by command of the
bishop of Albi and his assessors, condemned
these persons as heretics; and the third
reason, according to Hoveden, given by
Gilbert for his sentence was that they would
not save children by baptism. He also
preserves a Letter of Peter, titular of St.
Chrysogonus, Cardinal, Priest, and Legate of
the Apbstolic See, written in 1178, in
which, speaking of the Albigenses, he says.
"Others stoutly maintained to their faces
that they had heard from them that baptism
was of no use to infants."

Collier**** gives the meaning of Hoveden
correctly when he represents him as stating,
in reference to the Albigenses, "These
heretics refused to own infant baptism."
Evervinus, in a letter to St. Bernard,
speaking evidently of Albigenses, in
Cologne, in 1147, and consequently before
the conversion of Peter Waldo, says, "They
do not believe infant baptism, alleging that
place of the gospel, ‘Whosoever shall
believe and be baptized shall be saved.’"
Eckbert, in 1160, in his work against the
Cathari, written in thirteen discourses,
says in the first, "They say that baptism
profits nothing to children who are
baptized, for they cannot seek baptism by
themselves, because they can make no
profession of faith."

The Paulicians received their name because
they were specially the disciples of the
Apostle Paul. They were established as a
denomination by a gift of the Scriptures to
their founder, through which he received
Christ, became a mighty teacher, and
gathered not converts simply, but churches.

At the great trial in Thoulouse in 1176 they
(the Albigenses) would not accept anything
as an authority but the New Testament.
Throughout their wide-spread fields of toil
from Armenia to Britain, and from one end of
Europe to the other, and throughout the nine
hundred years of their heroic sufferings and
astonishing successes, they have always
shown supreme regard for the Word of God. If
these men, coming from the original cradle
of our race, journeying through Thrace,
Bulgaria, Bosnia, Italy, France, and
Germany; and visiting even Britain, were not
Baptists, they were very like them.

If all the wicked slanders about them were
discarded it would most probably be found
that some of them had little in common with
us, but that the majority, while redundant
and deficient in some things as measured by
Baptist doctrines, were substantially on our
platform.

This position about the Paulicians of the
East is ably defended by Dr. L.P. Brockett
in "the Bogomils."

*Evan's Bosnia, pp 36. 37, 42

++Matthew Paris, at A.D. 1223

**Bibliotheca Patrum, tom 4 p. ii, Coll. 746

+++Du Pin's Eccles. Hist., ii. 456. Dublin.

***Du Pin, ii. 392.

++++Annals of Roger De Hoveden, i. 427, 480.
London, 1853.

****Collier’s Eccles. list., II. 358.
London, 1840.

source: Cathcart's Baptist Encyclopedia

Henricians

The Henricians by William Cathcart

Henry, a monk in the first half of the
twelfth century, became a great preacher. He
was endowed with extraordinary powers of
persuasion, and with a glowing earnestness
that swept away the greatest obstacles that
mere human power could banish, and he had
the grace of God in his heart. He denounced
prayers for the dead, the invocation of
saints, the vices of the clergy, the
superstitions of the church, and the
licentiousness of the age, and he set an
example of the sternest morality. He was a
master-spirit in talents, and a heaven-aided
hero, a John Knox, born in another clime,
but nourished upon the same all-powerful
grace.

When he visited the city of Mans the
inferior clergy became his followers, and
the people gave him and his doctrine their
hearts, and they refused to attend the
consecrated mummeries of the popish
churches, and mocked the higher clergy who
clung to them. In fact, their lives were
endangered by the triumph of Henry's
doctrines. The rich and the poor gave him
their confidence and their money, and when
Hildebert, their bishop, returned, after an
absence covering the entire period of
henry's visit, he was received with contempt
and his blessing with ridicule. Henry's
great arsenal was the Bible, and all
opposition melted away before it.

He retired from Mans and went to Provence,
and the same remarkable results attended his
ministry; persons of all ranks received his
blessed doctrines and forsook the foolish
superstitions of Rome and the churches in
which they occupied the most important
positions. At and around Thoulouse his
labors seem to have created the greatest
indignation and alarm among the few faithful
friends of Romanism, and Catholics in the
most distant parts of France heard of his
overwhelming influence and his triumphant
heresy with great fear. In every direction
for many miles around he preached Christ,
and at last Pope Eugene III, sent a cardinal
to overthrow the heretic and his errors. He
wisely took within him, in 1147, the
celebrated St. Bernard. This abbot had the
earnestness and the temper of Richard
Baxter, whom he resembled in some respects.
He was a more eloquent man, and he was
probably the most noted and popular
ecclesiastic in Europe. He speaks
significantly for the state of things which
he found in Henry's field: "The churches
(Catholic) are without people, the people
without priests, the priests with due
reverence, and, in short, Christians are
without Christ; the churches were regarded
as synagogues, the sanctuary of God was not
held to be sacred, and the sacraments were
not reckoned to be holy, festive days lost
their solemnity, men died in their sins,
souls were snatched away everywhere to the
dread tribunal, alas! neither reconciled by
repentance nor fortified by the communion.
The life of Christ was closed to the little
children of Christians, whilst the grace of
baptism was refused, nor were they permitted
to approach salvation, although the Saviour
lovingly proclaims before them, and says,
'Suffer the little children to come to me'"

Elsewhere, St. Bernard, speaking of Henry
and other heretics, says, "They mock us
because we baptize infants, because we pray
for the dead, because we seek the aid of
{glorified} saints" That Henry had a great
multitude of adherents is beyond a doubt,
and that he was a Bible Christian is
absolutely certain, and that and his
followers rejected infant baptism is the
testimony of St. Bernard and of all other
writers who have taken notice of the
Henricians and their founders. We include to
the opinion of Neander that Henry was not a
Petrobrusian. We are satisfied that he and
his disciples were independent witnesses for
Jesus raised up by Baptists, and their
founder perished in prison.

source: Cathcart's Baptist Encyclopedia

Petrobrussians

Petrobrusians by William Cathcart

Peter de Bruys was the Catholic priest of an
obscure parish in France, which he left,
early in the twelfth century, when he became
a preacher of the gospel. How he un­learned
the gospel of the Seven Hills and was
in­structed in that of Calvary we cannot
tell, but he was educated in both
directions. Many Roman­ists, like Staupitz
or Fenelon, have received the saving
knowledge of Jesus and retained their
con­nection with the papal church; but Peter
abhorred popery.

He taught that baptism was of no advantage
to infants, and that only believers should
receive it, and he gave a new baptism to all
his converts; he condemned the use of
churches and altars, no doubt

for the idolatry practised in them; he
denied that the body and blood of Christ are
to be found in the bread and wine of the
Supper, and he taught that the elements on
the Lord's table are but signs of Christ’s
flesh and blood; he asserted that the
offer­ings, prayers, and good works of the
living could not profit the dead, that their
state was fixed for eternity the moment they
left the earth ; like the English Baptists
of the seventeenth century, and like the
Quakers of our day, he believed that it was
wrong to sing the praises of God in worship;
and he rejected the adoration of crosses,
and destroyed them wherever he found them.

It is said that on a Good-Friday the
Petrobru­sians once gathered a great
multitude of their brethren, who brought
with them all the crosses they could find,
and that they made a large fire of them, on
which they cooked meat, and gave it to the
vast assemblage. This is told as an
illustration of their blasphemous profanity.
Their crucifixes, and along with them
probably the images of the saints, were the
idols they had been taught to wor­ship, and
when their eyes were opened they de­stroyed
them, just as the converted heathen will now
destroy their false gods. Hezekiah did a
good thing in destroying the serpent of
brass, which in the wilderness had
miraculous powers of healing, when the
Israelites began to worship it as a god.

Peter’s preaching was with great power; his
words and his influence swept over great
masses of men, bending their hearts and
intellects before their resistless might.
“In Provence,” says Du Pin, “there was
nothing else to be seen but Chris­tians
rebaptized, churches profaned or destroyed,
altars pulled down, and crosses burned. The
laws of the church were publicly violated,
the priests beaten, abused, and forced to
marry, and all the most sacred ceremonies of
the church abolished.”

Peter de Bruys commenced his ministry about
1125, and such was his success that in a few
years in the places about the mouth of the
Rhone, in the plain country about Thoulouse,
and particularly in that city itself, and in
many parts of “ the prov­ince of Gascoigne”
he led great throngs of men and women to
Jesus, and overthrew the entire au­thority
of popes, bishops, and priests.

Had the life of this illustrious man been
spared the Reformation probably would have
occurred four hundred years earlier under
Peter de Bruys instead of Martin Luther, and
the Protestant nations of the earth would
not only have had a deliverance from .four
centuries of priestly profligacy and
wide­spread soul destruction, but they would
have en­tered upon a godly life with a far
more Scriptural creed than grand old Luther,
still in a considerable measure wedded to
Romish sacramentalism, was fitted to give
them.

Peter and his followers were decided
Baptists, and like ourselves they gave a
fresh baptism to all their converts. They
reckoned that they were not be­lievers when
first immersed in the Catholic Church, and
that as Scripture baptism required faith in
its candidates, which they did not possess,
they re­garded them as wholly unbaptized;
and for the same reason they repudiated the
idea that they re­baptized them, confidently
asserting that because of the lack of faith
they had never been baptized.

Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, was
born in 1093, and died in 1157. He was
distinguished by scholarship, acuteness of
mind, and Biblical knowledge. He and St.
Bernard were the two leading ecclesiastics
of France. Peter would re­buke a pope if he
deserved it without hesitation, and no other
human being was above his authority. The
abbot had assailed the Jews and the Saracens
in two distinct works. And such was the
extraor­dinary success of the Petrobrusians,
and the great difficulty of refuting their
arguments from the Scriptures, that Peter
felt compelled to come forth and defend the
deserted ecclesiastics and the church
threatened with ruin. We shall quote
somewhat freely from the abbot to show the
doctrines of these grand old Baptists. At
the beginning of his pam­phlet he states the
five heads of the heresy of the
Petrobrusians.

In the first he accuses them of “denying
that little children under years of
responsibility can be saved by the baptism
of Christ; and that the faith of another
(alienam fidem, the faith demanded from
popish sponsors when a child was christened)
could benefit those who were unable to
exercise their own (faith); because,
according to them, not an­other’s faith, but
personal faith, saves with bap­tism, the
Lord saying, ‘He who shall believe, and be
baptized, shall be saved, but he that
believeth not shall be condemned.'" This is
the abbot’s first and heaviest charge
against these ancient Baptists. This
accusation means that the Petro­brusians
refused to baptize children because they
were destitute of faith. The charge is
repeated frequently by the abbot of Cluny.

“The second capitulum says that temples or
churches should not be built, and that those
exist­ing should be torn down; that sacred
places for praying were unnecessary for
Christians, since God when addressed in
supplication heard equally those who in a
warehouse and in a church deserved his
attention, in a market-place and in a
temple, before an altar or before a stable.”
By this we under­stand that the
Petrobrusians did not believe in the
sanctity of bricks and mortar, and probably
thought that as Romish churches were nests
of idols and scenes of blasphemous
superstition, their destruc­tion would be no
crime.

“The third capitulum requires holy crosses
to be broken and burned, because that frame,
or instru­

ment, on which Christ, so fiercely tortured,
was so cruelly slain, is not worthy of
adoration, or vener­ation, or of any
supplication; but to avenge his torments and
death, it should be branded with dis­grace,
hacked to pieces with the sword, and
con­sumed in the flames.” The Petrobrusians
detested the worship of the crucifix, and
prayers offered to it. and, like the Scotch
Covenanters, they urged its destruction as a
Christ-dishonoring idol,

“The fourth capitulum denied not only the
real­ity of the body and blood of the Lord,
as offered daily and constantly in the
sacrament (Eucharist) in the church; but
judged that it was absolutely nothing, and
should not be offered to God.” In this
opinion all Protestants concur.

“The fifth capitu lum holds up to ridicule
sacri­fices, prayers, charitable gifts, and
the other good works performed by the
faithful living for the faithful departed.”
Peter then states that he had answered
“these five heads,” or heresies, “as God had
enabled him.” He might have added a sixth
capitulum, that the Petrobrusians wanted
Scripture for everything and not the sayings
of the fathers. This is admitted in his
discussion of their errors. The creed given
by Peter to these Baptists is excel­lent as
far as it goes. It is the faith of their
brethren to-day. The abbot then proceeds to
refute these imaginary heresies separately.
And under the heading, “Answer to the Saying
of the Here­tics that Little Children should
not be Baptized (Responsio contra id quod
dicunt haeretici parvulos non posse
baptizari) he commences his attack on the
first capitutum. Peter assumes without
evi­dence that the Petrobrusians believed
that baptism was essential to salvation; and
he takes up their declaration that faith was
necessary to baptism, and that not the faith
of another but the faith of the subject of
baptism, and then he proceeds with great
ingenuity to show how the faith of others
“saved” persons, as he says, in the Saviours
day. Among the cases which he brings forward
is that of the paralytic let down through
the roof of the house to the Saviour who was
inside, and Peter quotes the gospel
narrative. “ And when he (Jesus) saw their
faith he said~ Thy sins are forgiven.”

Peter then says, “What do you say to these
things? Behold, I relate this not from
Augustine (the godfather of infant baptism,
whose arguments have been its defensive
weapons for ages, and were very useful to
the abbot) but from the Evangel, which you
say you trust most of all. At length either
concede that some can be saved by the faith
of others (aliorum fide alios tandem posse
salvari concedite), or deny if you can that
the cases I brought forward are from the
Evangel." This and several similar instances
of healing in the New Testament where the
faith of another exercised an influence in
securing healing, make the abbot jubi­lant
over the Petrobrusians. But the paralyzed
man had faith himself, as well as those who
brought him to Jesus. This theory is
probably borrowed entirely from Augustine.
In his day the baptism of adults de­manded
faith continually, and when he put forth
enormous efforts to change the subjects of
baptism, he still insisted upon faith, the
faith of sponsors for unconscious babes.
Hence he says, “A little child is benefited
by their faith by whom ‘he is brought to be
consecrated” (in baptism) (prodesse parvulo
eorum fidem a quibus consecrandus
offer­tur*(*Ausustini Opera Omnia, i.
1304.); “a little child believes through
another (the sponsor) because it sinned
through another” (Adam) (~parvulus] credit
in altero quia peccavit in altero+). Again,
speaking of a little child, he says, “It has
the needful sacrament of the Media­tor, so
that what could not as yet be done by its
faith is performed by the faith of those
‘who love it” (necessarium habet Mediatoris
sacramentum, ut quod per ejus fidem nondum
potest, per eorum qui diligunt, flat++).
Speaking of baptism, Augus­tine says, “
Mother-church loans them (little chil­dren)
the feet of others that they may come (to
it), the heart of others that they may
believe, and the tongue of others that they
may make confession” (accommodat illis mater
ecolesia aliorum pedes ut veniant, aliorum
cur ut credant, aliorum linguam ut
fateantur***). Augustine ‘was in arms to
compel all Christendom to adopt infant
immersion, He was almost constantly
declaring, " Without bap­tism little
children can have no life in themselves”
(sine quo [baptismo]nee parvuli pssunt
habere vitam in semetipsis||); and as Pteter
the Venerable is fighting a similar battle
with the Petrobrusians, he stores his
membory with Augustine’s arguments, No boub
it was this that led him to say about the
faith of those who carried the palsied man
to Juseus, “Behold, I relate this not from
Augustine,but from the Evangel.”

Another common Pedobaptist argument is
presented Peter, the abbot, in these
words,”The unbelieving husband is saved by
the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife
is saved by the believing husband.” This he
fives as a quotation from Icor. vii., and
commenting upon it, he sys, “If the
unbelieving wife is saved by the faith of
the husband, and unbelieving husband is
saved by the faith of the wife, why should
not the child be saved by the faith of
husband and wife together?” This is a very
natural question. But unfortunately for the
abbot. Paul does not speak of either husband
or wife as being saved by the faith of the
other. He represents the one as being
SANCTIFIED by the other. And the
sanctification he refers to after its work
is done leaves its subject an unbeliever. It
is time legal righteousness of their wedded
relations and the legitimacy of their
children of which the apostle is speaking.
If indeed a Christian lady could give not
only her own heart but the love of Christ
and tile heavenly inheritance to her
unbelieving husband, and allow bins -still
to remain in unbelief and sin, it would make
a union with her an unheard-of attraction.
And the same would be true of the believing
hus­band. But Peter misquotes the Vulgate,
the only copy of the Scriptures which he
had. It has not his salvatur, but
sanctificatus and sanctificata est.

In ancient times, after the heresy sprang
into ex­istence that water baptism was
necessary to salva­tion, it was believed
that martyrdom, or a baptism in-one’s own
blood, would supply the place of the saving
immersion. Peter turns this to ingenious
account. He says, “If the martyrs by a
personal faith are saved without baptism (in
water), why may not little children, as I
have said, be saved by baptism without a
personal faith ?“ Or we might add, Why may
they not be saved like the martyrs without
any baptism? Treating of the commission of
the Saviour, the baptismal creed of the
Petro­brusians, he says, “‘He who believeth
not shall be damned.’ You think, forsooth,
that little children are held by this chain,
and because they are not able to believe,
that baptism will profit them no­thing. But
it is not so; the sacred words them­selves
show this; they do not show it to the blind,
but to those who see; they show it to the
humble, not to the haughty. ‘Go,’ says the
Lord, ‘into all the world, and preach the
gospel to every creature. He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved; he that
helieveth not shall be condemned.’ These
words terrify the rebellious; they do not
condemn the in­nocent, they strike iniquity
; they do not strike irresponsible infancy,
they destroy despisers of grace; they do not
condemn the simplicity of na­ture (innocent
children) - - . Restrain, therefore, the
excessive severity which you assume, and do
not aim to appear more just than him, all
whose ways are mercy and truth, nor shut out
little chil­dren from the kingdom of Imeaven
(by refusing to baptize them), in reference
to whom he has said, ‘Of such is the kingdom
of heaven.’ “ Peter’s in­terpretation of the
condemnation of the commission is correct;
it does not condemn any who cannot be­lieve.
But his inference from it that infants
should be baptized is childishness for the
imaginary ad­vantage of infants. All infants
are saved ‘without baptism, as the
Petrobrusians believed. The com­mission has
only to do with believers and their
bap­tism, and the penalty of unbelief when
persons have heard the gospel in years when
faith is possible. Peter proceeds to take up
the old argument which Augustine uses, and
which has such a modern and familiar sound:
“For thus afterwards Christ the Lord placed
holy baptism in his church, the sacra­ment
of the New Testament for the circumcision of
the flesh.” (Sic etiam postquam Dominus
Christus in ecciesia sua sacranientum Novi
Testa­menti pro circumsicione carnis sanctum
baptismum dedit. Augustini Opera Omnia, ii.
1087. Migne, Parisiis 1842.) And he says,
“For it is very dis­graceful and impious
that we should refuse that to the little
children of Christians which we grant to
time little children of Jews, . . . for
neither does time law prevail over the
gospel nor Moses over Christ he little
children of the Hebrews were circumcised by
divine command on the eghth day, and purged
from original si-n. Where, then, was the
faith of the boys? What was their
understanding of tile sacrament which they
re­ceived? ‘What was their knowledge of
divine things? Where are you who condeumn
Christian little children? Tile little
children of Jews are saved by the sacrament
of circumcision, and shall not the little
children of Christians be saved by the
sacrament of baptism? The Jew believes, and
his son is cleansed from sin; the Christian
believes, and shall not his child be freed
from similar guilt? There is no faith in the
little children of Christians, but neither
is there any faith in the little children of
Jews, yet they are saved by the faith of
another when circumcision is received, and
these (little children) are saved by tile
faith of another (the sponsors) when baptism
is received."*

We have made these quotations to show how
vigorously the Petrobrusians denounced
baptism on time “faith qf another” and
insisted on personal faith. Much more might
be introduced from the celebrated assault of
the abbot of Cluny, hut from what has been
placed before the reader from Peter the
Venerable, it is clear that the
Petrobi-usians were very decided Bible
Baptists,—Baptists ready for anything on
earth except a renunciation of their
Scriptural principles. The other four
charges of Peter are quite as favorable to
time general ortho­doxy of these ancient
brethren.

Their immense strength to resist the church
and make converts is seen in the
extraordinary pains Peter takes to arm
himself with all the weapons oc Augustine
and with such as he had made himself, and in
the extremely skillful use which he makes of
them. It is refreshing to read a treatise
written seven hundred and thirty~six years
ago against a powerful body of Baptists by a
very able theolo­gian. Augustine directed
the most subtle argu­ment against the men
who held Baptist principles in his day; but
our people, when crushed, have only been
overcome for a time, and then received fresh
life again; and beyond a doubt our doctrines
will finally seized the whole race and bless
all nations.

* Patri. Lat., clxxxix. pp. 722, 729, 752,
754, 755, 757, 758.

Migne, Parisis, 1854.

source: Cathcart's Baptist Encyclopedia

The Anabaptists

ANABAPTISTS by William Cathcart

The name “Anabaptist” was originally a
reproachful epithet applied to those
Christians in the time of the Reformation
who, from rigid adherence to the Scriptures
as the infallible and all sufficient
standard of faith and practice, and from the
evident incompatibility of infant baptism
with regenerate church membership, rejected
infant baptism and inaugurated churches of
their own on the basis of believers’
baptism. While reproached by their enemies
with rebaptizing those that had been already
baptized in the established churches, they
maintained that the baptism of believers,
such as was administered by themselves, was
the only Christian baptism, the baptism of
infants being unworthy of the name.

Anabaptists, The German and Swiss.—The
Anabaptist Reformation was nothing more than
a consistent carrying out of the principles
at first laid down by the Reformers, Luther
and Zwingle, who both proposed, at the
outset, to make the Bible the only standard
of faith and practice. Many men of great
religious earnestness, filled with this
idea, could not bear to see the godly and
the ungodly living together in the church,
the latter as well as the former partaking
of the Lord’s Supper. The necessity of a
separation of Christians from the ungodly
was, therefore, the most fundamental thing
with the Anabaptists of the sixteenth
century, as it is with Baptists today. If
only the regenerate are to be members of
this body, it follows, necessarily, that
those baptized in unconscious infancy, or
later in life without faith, are not truly
baptized. They understood the Scripture to
make faith a prerequisite to baptism; and
they found in Scripture no precept nor
example for infant baptism. They rejected
infant baptism as a matter of course and
baptized anew all that came to them. Hence
the name of reproach—” Anabaptist.” Luther
was as uncompromising as Baptists in making
personal faith prerequisite to valid
baptism. He reproached the Waldenses for
baptizing infants, and yet denying that such
infants have faith, thus taking the name of
the Lord in vain. Not baptism, Luther held,
but personal faith, justifies. If the infant
has not personal faith, parents lie when
they say for it “I believe.” But Luther
maintained that through the prayers of the
church the infant does have faith, and he
defied his adversaries to prove the
contrary. This was more than the average man
could believe. Hence he would be likely to
accept the principle and to reject the
application. Luther attached great
importance to baptism; Zwingle very little.
Hubmaier and Grebel both asserted that, in
private conversation with them, Zwingle had
expressed himself against infant baptism.
His earlier writings show that for a time he
doubted the scripturalness of infant
baptism, and preferred to postpone baptism
until the subject should be able to profess
his faith. We have indisputable evidence
that almost every other leader in the
Reformation, Melancthon, (Ecolampadius,
Capito, etc., had a struggle over the
question of baptism. It seems equally
certain that they were deterred from
rejecting infant baptism by the manifest
consequences of the Baptist position. It
appeared to them impossible that any
movement should succeed which should lose
the support of the civil powers, and should
withdraw the true Christians from the mass
of the people. Endless divisions, the
triumph of the papists, and the entire
overthrow of the Reformation, seemed to them
inevitable. Hence their defense of infant
baptism, and their zeal in the suppression
of the Anabaptists. Those that rejected
infant baptism believed that Zwingle thought
as they did, but held back from unworthy
motives. We may divide the Anabaptists into
three classes: (1) The fanatical
Anabaptists. (2) The Baptist Anabaptists.
(3) The mystical Anabaptists. Great
injustice has been done to many that fall
under the name Anabaptist by failing to make
this distinction. Was a certain party
fanatical? The stigma is attached to all.
Were a few mystics Anabaptists? All classes
are blamed for it.

Anabaptists, The Fanatical,—These were for
the most part a result of Luther’s earlier
writings. It is remarkable that fanatical
developments occurred in connection with
Lutheranism, and not in connection with
Zwinglianism.

Thomas Munzer and the Zwickau Prophets.—
Thomas Munzer was never really an
Anabaptist. Though he rejected infant
baptism in theory, he held to it in
practice, and never submitted to rebaptism
himself nor rehaptized others. Yet he is
usually regarded as the forerunner of the
movement, and he certainly was influential
in that direetion. Having studied previously
at Halle, he came to Wittenberg, where he
came under Luther’s influence, and where he
received his Doctor’s degree. Like Luther,
Munzer was a great reader of the German
Mystics, and when Luther came forward as a
Reformer, Munzer became one of his most
decided and faithful supporters. On Luther’s
recommendation he came to Zwickau in 1520 as
parish priest. Here he entered into
controversy with the Erasmic rationalistic
Egranus. The common people, especially the
weavers, took sides with Munzer. Chief among
these was Nicholas Storch, a Silesian,
probably a Waldensian. Munzer was naturally
inclined to fanaticism, and this
controversy, together with the zealous
support he received from the common people,
did much to bring it out. He regarded
Luther’s movement as a half-way affair, and
demanded the establishment of a pure church.
He denounced Luther as an incapable man, who
allowed the people to continue in their old
sins, taught them the uselessness of works,
and preached a dead faith more contradictory
to the gospel than the teachings of the
papists. While be held to the inspiration of
the Scriptures, Munzer maintained that the
letter of Scripture is of no value without
the enlightenment of the Spirit, and that to
believers God communicates truth directly
alike in connection with and apart from the
Scriptures. The excitement among the common
people became intense, and Storch and others
began to prophesy, to demand the abolition
of all papal forms, and objects, and to
speak against infant baptism. Munzer had
gone to Bohemia to preach in 1521. Here he
published an enthusiastic address to the
people in German, Bohemian, and Latin,
denouncing the priests, and declaring that a
new era was at hand, and that if the people
should not accept the gospel they would fall
a prey to the Turks. Meanwhile, Storch’s
party attempted to carry out their ideas by
force, and proclaimed that they had a
mission to establish the kingdom of Christ
on earth. They were suppressed by the
authorities, and some of them thrown into
prison; but Storch, Stubner, and Cellarius
escaped and fled to Wittenberg. Stubner, a
former student of the university, was
entertained by Melancthon, who for a time
was profoundly impressed by the prophets.
Carlstadt especially was brought under their
influence. Storch traveled widely in Germany
and Silesia, disseminating his views mostly
among the peasants. He seems to have been a
man of deep piety, great knowledge of
Scripture, and uncommon zeal and activity in
propagating his views. In Silesia, he is
said to have labored for some time in
connection with Lutheranism, which had just
been planted there, withholding his peculiar
views until he had gained a sufficient
influence to preach them effectively. Then
he brought large numbers to his views. Here
also the attempt to “set up the kingdom of
God on earth” was accompanied with tumult,
and Storch was driven from Glogan. Driven
from place to place, he established
Anabaptist communities in various places, in
the villages, and among the peasants. From
Silesia Storch went to Bavaria, where he
fell sick and died. But he left behind him
many disciples, and two strong men who
became leaders: Jacob Hutter and Gabriel
Scherding. From Silesia and Bavaria many
Anabaptists fled into Moravia and Poland,
where they became very numerous, and
although they were afterwards persecuted
severely they continued to exist for a long
time. The followers of Storch practiced in
many instances community of goods, and under
persecution manifested some fanaticism. But
we do Storch some injustice in classing him
among the fanatics. Inasmuch, however, as
he, was closely connected with Munzer at the
beginning, and inasmuch as our information
about him is not definite, we class him here
with the expression of a probability that he
repudiated much of Munzer’s proceedings, and
was in most respects a true preacher of the
gospel. In 1523, Munzer became pastor at
Alstedt. Here he married a nun, set aside
the Latin -Liturgy and prepared a German
one. In this he retained infant baptism.
About the beginning of 1524 he published two
tracts against Luther’s doctrines with
regard to faith and baptism. He had become
convinced of the unscripturalness of infant
baptism, yet continued to administer it,
telling the people that true baptism was
baptism of the Spirit. Munzer’s ministry in
Alstedt was brought to a close by the
iconoclastic zeal of his followers. His
preaching all along was of a democratical
tendency, for he longed to see all men free
and in the enjoyment of their rights. During
this year he went to Switzerland, where he
attempted to persuade (Ecolampadius and
others of the right of the people to revolt
against oppression. Here also he probably
met the men who soon became leaders of the
Swiss Anabaptists: Grebel,Manz, Hubmaier,
etc.

His main object in this tour seems to have
been to secure co-operation in the impending
struggle for liberty. Returning to
Muhlhausen he became chief pastor and member
of the Council. The whole region was soon
under his influence. Luther visited the
principal towns and attempted to dissuade
the people from revolution. He also
attempted to induce the rulers to accord to
the peasants their rights. But in neither
respect did he succeed. When the peasants
revolted, Luther, although he knew that they
had cause for dissatisfaction, turned
against them and counseled the most
unmerciful proceedings. Munzer showed no
military capacity. The peasants had no
military discipline, and were deceived by
Munzer into reliance upon miraculous divine
assistance. The result was that they were
massacred in large numbers. Munzer was taken
prisoner and afterwards beheaded.

Melchior Hoffman, born in Sweden, accepted
Luther’s doctrine about 1523, preached with
great zeal in Denmark and Sweden, laboring
with his hands for his support. In the same
year he came under the influence of Storch
and Munzer. Like these, he believed that the
last day was at hand, and with great
earnestness warned men to turn from their
sins. His interpretation of Scripture,
especially the prophetical parts, which he
freely applied to his own time, and his
constant effort to arouse men to flee from
the wrath to come, led to his being hunted
from place to place by Lutherans as well as
by papists.

In 1526, King Frederick of Denmark came to
his aid and gave him a comfortable stipend
and freedom to preach the gospel throughout
Holstein. Here Hoffman remained about two
years, and might have remained longer had he
not declared in favor of the
Carlstadt-Zwinglian view of the Lord’s
Supper. This led to controversy, which
caused his expulsion and the confiscation of
his goods. In company with Carlstadt he took
refuge in Switzerland, and in 1529 went to
Strassburg. Here he was joyfully received by
the Zwinglians, but his preaching soon
disgusted them, the difficulty here, as
elsewhere, being that he claimed a special
inspiration of God to interpret Scripture,
and did this in a manner that tended to
produce an unwholesome popular excitement.
Hoffman now came to see that there was a
wide breach between him and the other
evangelical preachers. Their apprehension of
Scripture, he thought, was an apprehension
of the letter, his, of the spirit. Their
religion was of the understanding, his, of
the heart. Their religion admitted of pride
and pomp, his, only of humility. The
Anabaptists had by this time become numerous
in Southern Germany. When Hoffman came to
know them it is not strange that he should
have been led to unite with them. In 1530 be
declared his acceptance of their views on
baptism, justification, free-will, church
discipline, etc.; and as most of the
Anabaptist leaders had either suffered
martyrdom or died of the pestilence, Hoffman
became a leader among them, and led many to
his own fanatical and false views. Under
Hoffman’s influence the opinions of the
Anabaptists, which had been in great part
sound and biblical, underwent many changes.
Hoffman believed that Christ did not receive
his body from the virgin. This view was
perpetuated by the Mennonites (a sort of
Manichean view). His Millenarian views also
became common among the Anabaptists. Through
him the Anabaptist movement spread over all
the Netherlands, and he came to be regarded
as a great prophet. At Embden, in Friesland,
the Anabaptists became so strong that they
were able to baptize openly in the churches
and on the streets. The most influential
leader in the Netherlands (after Hoffman)
was Matthiesen. In 1532 Hoffman was thrown
into prison in Strassburg. Here he became
more and more fanatical. Several men and
women began to have visions and to interpret
them with reference to current events.
Hoffman they called Elias ; Schwenkfeldt was
Enoch, etc. The enthusiasm spread, and the
Anabaptist movement made rapid conquests.
Persecution was probably the cause, and
certainly a means of promoting the
fanaticism. Hoffman died in prison, January,
1 1543, after more than ten years
confinement.

The Munster Uproar.—The episode in the
history of the Reformation that did most to
make the Anabaptists abominable in the eyes
of the world, and from the effects of which
Baptists long suffered in England and
America, and even now suffer in Germany, was
the Munster kingdom. Doubtless the preaching
of Hoffman, and still more that of his
followers, had something to do with this
event. Yet the idea that this preaching
constitutes the chief factor is utterly
unfounded. In 1524—25, Munster shared in the
communistic movement (Peasants’ War), but
the magistrates and clergy had been strong
enough to crush out the communism and
Lutheranism together. After this the
Reformation gained scarcely any visible
ground there until 1529. About this time,
Bernard Rothmann, an educated and eloquent
young man, as chaplain in the collegiate
church at St. Mauritz, near Munster, began
to preach Protestant sermons. Despite the
determined opposition of magistrates and
clergy, the Munster people forsook the
parish churches and flocked to St. Mauritz.
In 1533 the Protestants obtained in Munster
the right to the free exercise of their
religion, and six parish churches came into
their hands. Soon they obtained the
supremacy in the Council, and began to carry
out their principles of reform. The bishop
and Romish clergy were driven away, and an
army was equipped for the protection of
Lutheranism. Thousands of insurrectionary
spirits assembled from the surrounding
regions, and among them many of the
Hoffmanite Anabaptists. It was natural that,
when these latter saw the papal party
crushed, they should have supposed that the
kingdom of Christ was about to he set up at
Munster. In 1532, Rothmann, the recognized
leader of the Lutheran party at Munster,
became an Anabaptist. As a Lutheran,
Rothmann is said to have been dissolute.
When he became an Anahaptist he adopted an
almost ascetical mode of life. He exhorted
the people to the practice of charity and
humility, and warned them against yielding
to the senses and passions. He also declared
that the millennium had come, and that the
end of the world would come a thousand years
later. The Anabaptists gained the ascendancy
just as the Lutherans had done before them.
Once in full power, their fanaticalism
increased until a king was set up, polygamy
was introduced in accordance with pretended
revelations of the Spirit, and many other
abominations were practiced. After a few
months the Munster kingdom was overthrown
and the leaders executed. This affair has
commonly been looked upon as a natural
culmination of Anabaptism. The fact is, that
Lutheranism was responsible for it far more
than Anabaptism, and that the rigor with
which evangelical Christianity was
suppressed in Munster until 1531 was the
most potent cause of all.

The Baptist Anabaptists--While none of the
Anabaptists were free from what we regard as
errors, the great body of the Swiss
Anabaptists made a very close approach to
our position and if we take into
consideration the circumstances under which
they were placed, we shall not he inclined
to judge them harshly in the things wherein
they seem to have gone astray. Fundamentally
they were Baptists, but it required time for
them to reach a complete development.
Roubli, when expelled from Basle, caine to
Wyticon, near Zurich, and under his
influence the parishioners almost all
refused to have their children baptized, as
early as 1524. Roubli did not yet insist on
rebaptism, but simply set forth the
unscripturalness of infant baptism. In 1524,
Grebel, Manz, and others began to manifest
their dissatisfaction with the state of
ecclesiastical affairs at Zurich. They
pressed upon Zwingle the necessity of a
further reformation of the churches, and
reproved him for tardiness and coldness in
the matter. Zwingle urged that the
unregenerate had been retained in the
churches, on the ground that "he that is not
against us is for us;” and that in the
parable it is commanded to let the tares
grow with the wheat. They objected also to
the dependence of religion on the civil
magistracy. They were answered that the
magistracy, while not free from human
elements, was not merely not opposed to the
Word of God, but gave protection to the
preaching of the same. They soon began to
accuse Zwigli of sacrificing willfully the
truth in order to maintain the favor of the
civil rulers. They now began to absent
themselves from the churches, to hold secret
meetings, in which they discussed freely the
desirableness of setting up pure churches.
During this year the writings of Carlstadt
and Munzer became known to them, and they
instituted a correspondence with these men.
How far the Zurich Anabaptists were
influenced by Munzer it is not possible to
ascertain. It is certain that they read his
writings against Luther and admired them,
before September, 1524. It is equally
certain that they were not first led to
their views of thorough reform by these
writings, but were only strengthened and
encouraged thereby in their already
progressing work. The letter of Grebel,
Manz, and others to Munzer, Sept. 5, 1524,
shows that they had already advanced far
beyond Munzer in their true views of reform,
and that they felt themselves competent to
pronounce judgment upon Munzer's
inconsistencies and upon his revolutionary
utterances. They expostulate with him for
having translated the mass instead of
abolishing it. They claim that there is no
precept or example in the New Testament for
the chanting of church services. They insist
that what is not expressly taught by word or
example is the same as if it were forbidden.
No ceremonies are allowable in connection
with the Lord’s Supper, except the reading
of the Scriptures bearing upon this
ordinance. Common bread and common wine,
without any idolatrous ceremonies, are to be
employed in the Supper. The ordinance is
declared to be an act of communion,
expressive of the fact that communicants are
truly one body. Inasmuch as the ordinance is
a communion, no one is to partake of it
alone on a sickbed. It should not be
celebrated in temples, on account of
superstitious associations. It should be
celebrated frequently. They exhort Munzer to
abandon all non-scriptural usages, insisting
that it is better that a few should believe
and act in accordance with the Word of God
than that many should believe in a doctrine
mingled with falsehood. They are pleased
with his theoretical rejection of infant
baptism, but grieved that he should continue
to practice what he has shown to be
unwarranted. Moreover, they have heard that
he has been preaching against the
magistracy, and maintaining the right of
Christians to resist abuses with the sword.
They set forth their conviction that neither
are we to protect the gospel nor ourselves
with the sword. Thus the Swiss Anabaptists
were from the outset free from fanaticism,
and they appear even in 1524 not as
disciples, but as teachers of Munzer. The
opposition to the established church had by
this time become so formidable, that the
Council appointed a public disputation for
Jan. 17, 1525; but there was no intention on
the part of the Council or of Zwingle to
decide the matter fairly in accordance with
the weight of the arguments, and the
decision of the Council was, therefore,
against the Anabaptists; and a mandate was
at once issued requiring the baptism within
eight days of every unbaptized child, on
pain of the banishment of the responsible
parties. This action was soon followed by a
prohibition of the assemblies of the
radicals. Grebel and Manz were exhorted to
leave off their disputing against infant
baptism and in favor of regenerate church
membership. In order to insure quiet,
Roubli, Hatzer, and others, foreigners, were
warned to leave the canton within eight
days. This only led to greater boldness on
the part of the Anabaptists, and soon George
Blaurock, having first been baptized by
Grebel, baptized a number of others. From
this time the cause of the Anabaptists,
notwithstanding the severe persecution to
which they were subjected, made rapid
progress. The breaking out of the Peasant’s
War in 1525 tended to increase the
apprehensions of the Swiss authorities, and
the rigor towards Anabaptists now became
greater. Many, both men and women, were
thrown into prison, and released only on the
payment of heavy fines and the promise to
desist from their heresy, or, in some eases,
to leave the canton. The penalty of
returning from banishment was drowning.
Grebel, Manz, Hubmaier, and Blaurock were
imprisoned and banished. Manz was finally
drowned. Though continually harassed, these
noble witnesses for Christ were very active,
traveling from place to place, preaching at
night in private houses to the people, who
were anxious to hear. Some preachers
baptized hundreds, if not thousands, of
persons. From Zurich they spread throughout
Switzerland, Southern Germany, the
Netherlands, Moravia, etc.

Doctrines of the Swiss Anabaptists.—Although
most of the leaders held some views peculiar
to themselves, they may be said to have been
agreed on the following points, as exhibited
in the Confession of 1527, which also forms
the basis of Zwingle’s “Refutation" of 1527.
(1) Baptism of believers. The form of
baptism was not commonly discussed, the
chief object was to secure believing
subjects.) (2) Discipline and exclusion of
unworthy members. (3) Communion of baptized
believers. (4) Separation from the impure
churches and the world. This involved a
refusal to have any social intercourse with
evil-doers, to attend church services with
unbelievers and those in error, to enter
into marriage relations with them, etc. This
absolute separatism gave them as much
trouble, perhaps, as any other single
doctrine. (5) They condemned the support of
pastors by taxation of the people. The
pastors, when they required support, were
rather to be supported by voluntary
offerings of the members. (6) As to
magistracy, they maintained that true
Christians, as being entirely subject to the
laws of Christ, have no need of magistracy.
Yet they did not deny that magistracy is
necessary in the ungodly world; neither did
they refuse obedience to magistracy in
whatever did not come athwart their
religious convictions. (7) They rejected
oaths on the ground of Christ’s command,
“Swear not at all.” They distinguished,
however, between swearing as a promise with
an oath to do or be something in the future,
and testifying with regard to things past or
present. The latter they did not condemn.

The Mystical and Speculative Anabaptists.—
Here may be classed a large number of able
and learned men, some who allied themselves
with the Anabaptists and were active in
evangelical work, as Denk and Haetzer;
others who contented themselves with the
theoretical rejection of infant baptism, but
who either cared so little for ordinances in
general as to be unwilling to make rejection
of infant baptism a prominent feature of
their creed, as Schwenkfeldt, Sebastian,
Frank, etc., or else were so occupied with
graver doctrinal controversies that their
Anabaptist views attracted comparatively
little attention, as Michael Servetus,
Faustus Socinus, etc. Almost all the
Antitrinitarians were rejecters of infant
baptism, and several who diverged very
widely from accepted views with regard to
the person of Christ were especially noted
as Anabaptists. With many the unspeakable
love and mercy of God came to be a favorite
theme. Such being the case, the propitiatory
character of Christ’s death came to be
viewed by some as unnecessary and contrary
to God’s character. There being thus no need
of an infinite sacrifice, many came to deny
the absolute eternity of the Son and his
absolute equality with the Father. On the
other hand, it was perfectly natural that
those who went so far as to call in question
the great doctrinal formulae should call in
question such practices as infant baptism,
for which there is no New Testament
authority whatever. We are to make a clear
distinction between men who were led into
error by excessive Mysticism, as Denk,
Haetzer, etc., and those who were professed
rationalists as Laelius and Faustus
Socinus.. (See Denk and Haetzer.)

Anabaptists, The Dutch.—We give separate
consideration to the early Dutch
Anabaptists, on account of their relation to
the Mennonites, who still constitute an
important party. We shall have space only
for the following remarks. 1. A considerable
number of moderate Swiss Anabaptists when
persecuted at home took refuge in the
Netherlands and made many converts before
the time of Hoffman and Matthiesen. 2. Most
of these were absorbed by the much more
vigorous movement in which Hoffman’s
influence preponderated (1529—34). 3. A
small number of Dutch Anabaptists maintained
their moderation even in the time of the
Munster uproar. 4. A still larger number
were restored to their senses after the
suppression of the Munster kingdom. 5. Menno
Simon, a Roman Catholic priest, was led
through a profound religious experience,
gradually and almost independently of the
influence to the rejection of infant baptism
and the restoration of believer's baptism.
After the Munster uproar, the better element
of the Anabaptists in the Netherlands
repudiated all connection with the Munster
men, and with Menno Simon as their leader
(1536 onward) soon became an exceedingly
strong party. They suffered persecution
under the Inquisition, and thousands died at
the stake, but they finally secured
toleration, and have maintained themselves
to the present day. Their doctrines are, in
the main, the same as those held by earlier
Anabaptists. They reject infant baptism,
oaths, the magistracy, the sword, marriage
with unbelievers, and communion with the
unregenerate. They adopted Hoffman’s view as
to Christ’s body.

Men Never Learn From History!

It is a heart problem!

the recorded historical events which occurred as fulfillment of
Bible prophecy. Now, these are the basic truths with which we all must deal
with one way or another!

Two Basic Reasons For Our Failing Our History Lesson!

The Removing Of The Anchoring Landmarks
We have steadily almost imperceptibly at times removed one by one the great
principles that were part of the formulation of the United States of
America.

We have been busy for generations removing the anchoring landmarks that
came as a result of the revivals God blessed this country with in its early
years by the preaching of the word of GOD.

We have disobeyed the commandment in Proverbs 22:28- “Remove not the
ancient landmark which thy fathers have set.”

The Departure from the BIBLE
What was the catalyst or reason for this downward spiral? Are you ready! The
eyes of men everywhere had been clouded over with cataracts because of our
apostasy or departure from the BIBLE … God’s word (and more
exactly including the multiplicity of translations and corruption's to God's
written word).
This apostasy began in America in the BIBLE SCHOOLS early
in the last century (1901) when Philip Schaff (with other rank liberals who
had rot-gut unbelief in God's word within their hearts) colluded with the
English RV committee of 1885 (Westcott and Hort) to produce the American
Standard Version (ASV), also known as “the Rock of Bible Honesty” by the
scholars, or more accurately, by Bible believers, as a prime example of a
new age version of a corrupted bible.

Baptist Heritage

It is to the Baptists ... that we owe primarily ... our religious freedom,
and it is Roger Williams [of Rhode Island] in particular, that is the most
important contributor of our religious freedom we enjoy in the United States
of America.
The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for Cause of Conscience is the primary
document, which provided the underlying principles for religious freedom,
which in turn gave rise to the then future documents of The Declaration of
Independence, The United States Constitution and The Bill Of Rights.